HOW TO PRAY (PART 1)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”

Matthew 6:7-8

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

I don’t think there is any true Christian believer who would deny that prayer was not an important spiritual discipline. The scriptures make this very clear.

What may not be so clear is how to go about praying and this is why we find Jesus providing a primer during His first extensive teaching from His ministry, a teaching best known as the Sermon on the Mount. Over the next six devotions, we’ll look at what He had to say with five of the messages (beginning tomorrow) centered on what we have come to call “The Lord’s Prayer”. Before we get to that, let’s look at these lead in verses:

“When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”  Matthew 6:7-8

Note here that Jesus uses pagans as an example of how not to pray and I believe this is done for two reasons.

First, you can be sure that many of the Jews present were very well versed in pagan worship practices. In fact, you may remember that God punished His people many, many times because they chose to follow false gods and idols of pagans, even after God had commanded against it. The Jews would have been aware of the past transgressions of their ancestors and, who knows, maybe the sin was being repeated by some of those attending Jesus’ teaching. Jesus would have definitely known about those sins, even if done in private, and perhaps because of this, He chose to address the matter the way He did.

The second reason I think Jesus used the pagans as an example is that some of those listening to Him were most probably pagans themselves and what better way to get non-believers to change their ways than to address their transgressions point blank with the transgressors.

In either instance, Jesus calls out the pagans for babbling when they prayed and exhorted the people with Him to not do likewise.

Why would the pagans babble and use many words as a result?

Because they prayed to many different gods and during their prayers, they addressed each of these gods specifically asking for help according to what the god could provide. You can see where those prayers would end up being very lengthy, many words spoken to gods who were non-existent. In other words, the pagans were wasting a lot of time thinking they were being heard when they weren’t appealing to anything or anyone.   

Jesus makes it clear that anyone hearing His teaching were not to be the pagans. Further, He wanted to remind everyone that the only true God, their heavenly Father and only One they should be praying to, cared for them so much that He knew their needs before they would even ask. This isn’t a Lord who is dead and lifeless, a Lord who is non-existent. Rather, the God that Jesus was speaking about, His Father, was very much involved and concerned with the lives of all His people. He wanted to hear the prayers of His people as they discussed the needs He was already aware of.

With this established, Jesus continues His teaching by going into how we should pray to God and in His proposed Lord’s Prayer, we find the very economy of words He exhorts His hearers to use.

Tomorrow, we’ll begin that study.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com